The Tribunal Ended: To Business.

Well, so long as you’re listening, I may as well get you hep to our situation today.

Bonefish Johnny got croaked some time last night and ripples of war are already pulsing through the air. The Tsings are bubbling in their dens, their guardian lions more fierce than usual. You can almost see the saliva dripping from their gold-painted fangs, they want to put blood on the sphere their claws grip tight to. The Nair Gang are making funeral arrangements for more people than Johnny. The others aren’t getting flowers. The Cops were buried ten years ago.

I represent another concerned party. For securities’ sake, I’ll keep their identity to myself, but suffice it to say we’re more than witnesses to the events that have and promise to unfold. Count yourselves lucky you will not be affected by the waves Johnny’s death has made.

When The Nair Gang heard about Johnny, they coiled up tight, a phalanx of scales and submachine guns. The Nair Gang was in the habit of exerting their will in the lives of others. The same is true for The Tsings. Boss Tsing herself must have a great will indeed, for it has spread itself into many lives.

I’m sipping a gin and tonic in the back of Boss Tsing’s Mahjong parlor. I carry it in a flask: She doesn’t serve hard drink, and right now I need one. One of the guards outside the VIP lounge is giving me a dirty look, but I have every right to be here, so he can’t do shit. I made an appointment.

Oh. Well he can tell me to put my flask away. I wonder what would happen if I suggested where I could put it? I could kill the guy if I had the drop on him, but if he charges me I’m pretty fucked unless I’ve learned something from all those kung-fu movies, and I know I haven’t. Gotta hope instinct serves me well, or just clam and put it away. A bit of booze isn’t worth getting killed, and he’s got blood in his eyes.

Halfway across town, Kevin Tsing is in the crosshairs of a Scottish sniper. Can he feel those two strands? Can he feel the bullet before it tears through him? Will he even feel the bullet? We’ll never know: he got his face shot off. Bang goes communication. His brains spill across the street and get ground to mush by a passing cab that couldn’t care less because it’s an emotionless machine. The driver sure got a scare, though.

The sniper disassembles his rifle and tucks it away in a trombone case. He hadn’t given up playing the bagpipes, so the trombone case would have to do. Empty casings jangle about in his sporran, next to a tube of chapstick, muffled by a pack of tissues. The rule is your lips will only be chapped and your nose will only run when you have nothing with which to cure them. Our friend, the sniper, hated it when his nose ran and his lips chapped. Yes, he’s our friend. He’s not a friend of the Tsings. The Tsings don’t even know he exists. Not yet. I’m about to tell them.

In a back alley, two cooks from Hot Pot Express blow smoke from their nostrils and look towards the main road as if there were a fence in their way. Trapped in a nightmare they weren’t prepared for. One of their fellow cooks is in the kitchen, not a soul in the place. The bell above the door whips the two smokers heads round as two men enter the dining room. The cook’s already putting strychnine in their food as they sit down. One of the smokers grinds out his fag end and saunters into the dining room, a cloud of comfort hanging over him for a few more seconds until the buzz wears off and he’s back in his nightmare. He’d smoke heavier stuff if it weren’t for the state of his left hand. Came in ten kinds of twisted and, after five minutes of contemplation, plunged his hand into the deep fryer and came up with fifth degree burns and a charred rock of chicken.

The guys in the dining room are Nairs, no doubt about it. One of the cooks puts on Suedehead for a laugh. The Nairs don’t notice, good thing. Most people like to keep their blood in their bodies.

Out at last comes the waitress, strung out on junk. The dirty movies she did for Boss Tsing didn’t end up bringing the kind of acclaim she’d expected. Her face sings a song of sadness. She only smiles when I come in. She asks me where Shelly is. I wish I could tell her. She asks the Nairs what they want. Chicken with mixed veg and a pot of tea. She turns to shout the order to the kitchen and a ratatat tat punches holes through her body and face, ending her song forever. One of the cooks bursts in and gets the same swiss treatment. The owner upstairs hears everything. As he slides shells into a Norinco 98, he wonders why they bothered to order.

The Main Drag is chaos. Hungry dogs in the street, thirsty for blood. No orders, no time to brace for the impact. A sudden release of violence from the collective Humanity. A withered family packs up their streetside shop in a whirlwind and drive away as the flood grows nearer. A college student with headphones on gets the mouth blown off his cigarette. Bits of teeth and blood rain on the sidewalk. Two old ladies fumble with the lock on their apartment door, get swept up in the orgy, end up dead in a gutter, leaking into the sewers.

The Nairs didn’t conference. The death of Johnny was a telepathic message among their ranks to go bring Hell to Earth. The Tsings knew there’d be fire, they weren’t expecting so much. I’m inside now, talking to their leader. Her phone vibrates every three seconds with a new message. I’m telling her everything it wants to. The Hot Pot Express is a memory. The Owner got off one shot before he took two to the gut and went down, howling like a lost wolf. Even the 99 cent Fashion Store has been torn apart, gutted. Tsings are fighting from the rooftops, shooting out windows. They have the higher ground. The Nairs will convene and discuss the next move when every Tsing hangs by their toes in the streets. Now is the time to take them out. Nuclear war. Dr. Strangelove. Total Commitment. Deep down, she knows I’m right. Her father shudders beside her at the thought. Age has given him humanity enough to make him fight for life every day to avoid the fires of Hell he has earned himself. She can only hope it’s not already too late. Bunker down here and kill every last one of them.

A perfect scenario.

There are rumors Boss Tsing is a mind reader. Taking no chances, I think back to the day I first met her. She told me she knew I was coming, guessed a number I was thinking of, told me she had fallen from above, divine right to rule these streets. The cops didn’t buy that until they tried to test her. Nasty scene. Pigs gutted and seared in a wok with mixed veg for the mayor to taste the fruits of interference. I was there that night. We met at a curious point in our lives, both on our way up, both wanting the same thing. We became fast friends that night. I was the one that tied the mayor down while they fed him his Pigs guts and veg.

Gin burns my nostrils, knocking out the aroma of broth filled with pig intestine. Boss Tsing gives the order to nut up and shut up. She pulls a dao down from the wall and tosses it to me. I smile and think about baseball, just in case. She must think I’m an out there cat. She’s right.

They come in spurts, groups of two and three, one big group of ten, none of them make it to the stairs. All they had to do was make an appointment. Worked for me.

Three hours go by without any new faces to blow off. Daniel came in and died with little fanfare. Took three slugs and slunk to his knees, eyes still lit like he had a chance. With the Head cut off, the body must eventually follow. Word of Danny’s death must have spread. Bad news. Can’t think that. Good news. They’ll send a truce party soon. Should we kill them too? Gut them and post them on stakes as a message to the remaining hounds? If history has taught anything, it’s that the aftermath of WWI lead to WWII. Better to leave no stone unturned. Better to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Boss Tsing looks to agree, the blood’s in her eyes, dripping from her dao. I take another drink. The lime blocks the flow. Empty. From here on out I’m on my own.

Four hours. Two extremists jump in and get blown off. The Nairs have killed about 130 Tsings. We’ve killed at least 200 Nairs. Some of these kids are still in college, looking to score pussy, joining up just to gain cred and status. It’s no great loss: they didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives beyond pussy anyways, and a life devoted to recreating life is ridiculous, to me at least.

How did I fit a slice of lime in this flask?

Med student in scrubs wanders into the building looking for dim sum, gets a fistful of bullets and curses before anyone realizes the war’s over. He was a loner. His family won’t know he’s gone, he never wrote them. It’s been ten years since he was at Christmas. No mourners save a handful of friends that recognize it was just a case of wrong place wrong time. Everyone understands, the fabric of humanity remains intact. Are there still Nairs left? Or do they all lie before us? The spies of the Tsings never got an accurate headcount. I doubt the Nairs had one. Still, all the loyal dogs are dead, the indifferent will shrug off their flags and fly by whatever current flows hereafter.

This is where I come in, but I can’t think that. Not yet.

“What the hell do we do now?” the big bouncer yells to break the deafening silence that’s been hanging around for the last hour. It’s a fair question, but I wish everyone didn’t look to me for the answer. Gotta keep control. Dodgers beat the Athletics 2 to 1 last night. Airsoft pistols look the shit, fire 6mm BBs at high enough speed to break skin but couldn’t kill, even at closest ranger at temple, would only cause discomfort, maybe concussion, why do you have to be 18 to buy one? Do they assume that wisdom and care come with age? “They” are wrong. Especially in this bouncer’s case. He’s twice my age, twice my size, he thinks we should take to the streets. Suicide, I say, but he doesn’t listen, goes out anyways, leaving ten of us in the room alone. Not bad odds. The Tigers lost to the Pirates 9 to 4. My last fortune cookie read “We can’t control the wind, but we can always adjust the sails.”

Has that fan always been turning so fast? The Gin’s catching up to me. Got to act soon before it takes over, while I still have some control over my body. My body and mind are so delicately linked.

Boss Tsing sends everyone out to the ground floor, takes me upstairs, alone. My hand tightens on the dao she gave me. The Yankees lost to the Red Sox 3 to 2.

“What don’t you want me to know?” She says, behind her desk, pistol pointed at my gut.

“What?” I say. Ignorance is the best defense.

“About today. A sniper killed one of my men. He wasn’t a Nair. How do you fit into all this?”

Maybe she is a mind reader. Maybe she’s just lucky. I inch towards the desk, she cocks the hammer. No chances. Good plan. My mother loved pottery. She’d spend hours painting little pots and urns, then put them in the kiln, drink half a bottle of wine, and watch shitty television. Another relic of a lost generation.

“I’m just a messenger.” Which is true.

Long ago, I crafted an ethical code for myself alone to follow. I’m not foolish or proud enough to think myself better than others. One tenet of my philosophy is to never tell a lie. It’s especially hard to lie to a mind reader.

“Then why advise me? What do you gain from all this carnage?”

Everyone is out for themselves, no one is selfless. I am no exception. I’m here for a reason. Arsenal beat Liverpool 3 to 2, though there was one rather scandalous call made that could have changed that outcome.

“I’m just passing on knowledge. The Nairs know everything you do. My men have seen to that.”

She whips her piece to point at me. All the plasma in the streets, she’s taking no chances. I don’t blame her. It’s a big penny to drop, but it had to hit sometime, and I won’t lie to anyone.

“Did you really think we’d tolerate your shit lying down?”

I snatch the gun from her hand and whip in the face with my elbow. It’s cold, hard medicine, but it’s a sure cure for all diseases, and I happen to be the chosen supplier.

“What gave you the idea you were better than us? Did you really think we’d condone what you’ve done?”

Her bodyguards and her enemies are all dead around us. We’re the only ones standing in a sea of frigid bodies, wet with plasma, drying out.

“You don’t get to do the things you do and go on as if nothing happened. You have committed great crimes and your penance must be paid.”

I take the dao and cleave her eyeballs in one swipe. She screams, blood runs down her face. She thrashes for me or a door, trips over a body, falls onto two more. Her left forearm snaps into pieces in the fall. Shock sets in, pain overloading her senses. She goes fetal.

I have two long, thin, metal nails in my left pocket. No direct resistance. She’s gone feral; beyond consolation. I place my knee on her chest and sink my weight into her chest.

“We are not some mystic force of punishment. We’re not freelance dicks trying to gain ground for the feds. We’re the people that earn our livings honestly and we won’t stand for any of your bullshit.”

And that’s the last thing she’ll ever hear, save her own screams and the pop of her eardrums as I drive my nails home into her auditory canals.